Introduction to Servers
What is a Server?
For sneaker botting, a server is basically a PC that you can remotely connect to. These servers are typically hosted in data centers that are located near the stores you are trying to purchase from, in order to reduce latency. They will typically include fast internet speeds/bandwidth, as well as the necessary CPU cores and RAM needed for bots to function properly.
Essentially, a server is a remote PC that has both the power/specs and internet speeds needed in order to have your bots function properly and give you the best possible operating conditions during a release.
Types of Servers
A few server types that you will find on the market include:
Virtual Server
Dedicated Server
Virtual Server
A virtual server is a software computer used as an emulation of an actual physical computer.
A virtual server operates in a “multi-tenant” environment, meaning that multiple VMs run on the same physical hardware. In this case, the computing resources of a physical server are virtualized and shared among all VMs running on it. This means the CPU, RAM, Hard Drive, etc., are all shared with the other people using a virtualized server based off of the physical server itself. Everyone using the server will appear as though they are all using separate dedicated machines. This allows for server providers to keep costs lower while still giving you access to a server.
In order to create virtualized servers, what’s known as a hypervisor is installed onto the physical server. The hypervisor creates, manages and operates a number of virtual servers that have their own virtual computing resources, which interface with the dedicated server’s hardware and operating system. This is how server providers are able to create multiple virtualized server instances.
The hypervisor that controls the different virtualized servers of one dedicated machine is able to limit the amount of resources a virtualized instance is using, so that it does not steal or impact resources from another virtualized server on the same machine. This means that there should be more guarantee over the resources the user will be expecting to receive when using a virtualized server.
For sneaker releases, some virtual servers may appear to be laggy and unresponsive during peak times like drops. This is because others are using the same exact server as you on the same hardware. In essence, you are both running your bots on the same computer. This is what can cause servers and bots to feel very laggy, if too many of the computer's resources are in use and it can’t handle the load.
Dedicated Server
A dedicated server is for one tenant only. Only one person would be the one using the resources of a dedicated server, meaning the CPU, RAM, Hard Drive and internet for that server would be available to only one user. They would not be shared amongst others as a virtual server would be.
If your server is dedicated to only one person, it would operate much more smoothly during a release, as it is not utilizing shared resources as another person on the same server, as opposed to how a virtualized server instance would.
Providers may sell what is known as a bare metal server. Bare metal servers are a type of dedicated server, but not all dedicated servers are bare metal servers. This type of server is still a single tenant server.
A bare metal server is often considered to be faster and more efficient than a standard dedicated server. It is the best type of server that you can purchase.
Virtual vs Dedicated Server
The main things to look at when deciding which server type to use is cost and specs. In addition to these, you want reliability during drops, as if your server isn’t functioning properly during a drop, it will cost you that release.
Virtualized instances are often cheaper, but specs and performance may not be as good as a true dedicated or bare metal server. In addition, many virtual servers from various server providers can often run into reliability issues during drops. This means that the server will become very laggy and cause your bots to not run optimally, which can result in your bots having less checkouts overall compared to if the server wasn’t lagging and freezing up the whole time. This is because many providers often oversell virtual servers, and since resources are all shared under one physical computer, it does not leave you with a lot of the CPU processing power, RAM and internet speeds advertised. You will often notice this lag during peak traffic hours like drops, when everyone else is running their servers at the same time. If you do often notice lag during a drop on your server to the point it often feels unresponsive, you should consider switching to another provider who doesn’t oversell virtual instances or using a dedicated/bare metal server instead.
Dedicated and bare metal servers are more expensive than your average virtual server, but they do come with the advantage of you being the only user of all of its resources. This means that the server won’t lag on you during high traffic drops, as only you have access to the server. This can be a very helpful asset to you as a botter, as it allows you to have a server on 24/7 that is reliable and stable enough to get you through a release.
Bandwidth vs Latency
Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data that your internet service provider can transfer from one point to another. The two components of bandwidth are your download speed and upload speed, which are measured in megabits per second, or Mbps. Think of bandwidth as a pipe — the wider it is, the more data that can be transferred at one time.
Latency
Latency refers to the amount of time it takes for data to travel from one point to another. You may also hear latency referred to as “ping” during a speed test. Your latency, or ping time, is usually measured as milliseconds, or ms. Using the pipe analogy, think of latency as the water pressure, or how quickly data is moving through the pipe.
Bandwidth vs Latency
The difference between bandwidth and latency comes down to what they are measuring. Bandwidth looks at the amount of data being transferred while latency looks at the amount of time it takes data to transfer.
These two terms come together as throughput, which refers to the amount of data that is being transferred over a set period of time. If you have high bandwidth and low latency, then you have a greater throughput because more data is being transferred faster.
Upgrading your plan from say a 25 Mbps option to a 100 Mbps will improve your bandwidth, but not necessarily your latency. Meanwhile, being located physically closer to your proxies and the website’s servers you are running for will decrease your latency, but will not improve your bandwidth.
IP Address of A Server
Most server IP addresses are banned or throttled for many sneaker websites. Some providers may have servers with a local IP address that works for some sites still such as Supreme. You will generally need to use proxies when running on a server for most sites. Server providers will generally not guarantee the server IP to work for any website, but rather based on luck if it happens to not be flagged on a particular website.
Note that for Shopify proxy protection, running local doesn’t mean to run the local IP of your server. It means to run the local IP of your home as it appears as an actual residential IP address and not as likely to be throttled unless you showed abusive behavior from that IP such as running tasks on local for too long or ran too many tasks at once.
Geolocation
Sometimes when you purchase a server from a provider, the IP address of it will show up in a different region than the one you purchased for.
For example, if you purchase a server located in Virginia, it may show the location of the server somewhere in the UK. IP addresses can sometimes take a few weeks to a few days to update to the correct location.
This could be an issue for example, if you want to use your local server IP for a website, but the location isn’t in the US. You can generally fix this problem with the usage of proxies, but it is something to be aware of that can happen in some cases.
Connecting to a Server
Selecting a Program
There are different programs you can use to remotely connect to a desktop. If you are on Windows, the native Remote Desktop Connection program will usually suffice for many.
If you are trying to connect to your home PC, you may not be able to connect with the Remote Desktop Connection program depending on the version of windows you have. In that case, you can use a program like TeamViewer or Splashtop. TeamViewer is free, while Splashtop is a paid program. Splashtop is more lenient with connections as it allows you to stay connected for as long as you want, where TeamViewer will kick you off for being idle for a long period of time.
Chrome Remote Desktop Extension
If you are connecting from a Mac, refer to this article for instructions on how to connect to a server.
Using Multiple Monitors
If you want to use more than one monitor when connecting to a server, you can go into the settings of the Remote Desktop Connection program and set it to use multiple displays.
To do this, open up the Remote Desktop Connection program.
Click the show options button.
Select the Display tab on top.
Check the box that says “Use all my monitors for the remote session.”
Go back to the General tab on top and then click save as. Use that file in the future to connect to your server. Once you connect to the server, it should use all of your monitors.
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